Key Learnings and Challenges Explored
The Whitepaper reveals what the small print of a RISE contract means for day-to-day SAP operations – and why the gap between migrating and running with confidence is wider than most buying committees expect:
- The work doesn’t leave. The controls do. Hosting, infrastructure and database platform maintenance move to SAP. Six categories of Basis work stay with your team: application-layer operations, landscape provisioning and refresh, change and patching, interfaces and integration, security and compliance, and service management and tooling. Same accountability, less control.
- Surprises that catch experienced Basis teams out: routine ABAP dump checking is not included, memory management stays with you, client copies above 500 GB become system copies, refreshes are rationed, and your ticketing system is not the system of record (page 5).
- Cloud Application Services are priced by the run: many tasks that sound “included” are effort-based, sold in packages, and some are not offered at all. Avantra’s analysis tracks 265 line items that fall outside standard service.
- Familiar SAP tools are on the clock: EarlyWatch Alert, Solution Manager, ChaRM, TDMS and Business Connector reach the end of standard support in December 2027, with extended support options through 2033.
- RISE has an edge. The enterprise doesn’t. Monitoring, service levels and support stop at the boundary of the systems SAP operates, while real estates span RISE, on-premises, hyperscaler and SAP BTP. Across a hybrid estate, mean time to resolution often becomes mean time to agreement about whose problem it is.
The Whitepaper also includes a task-by-task appendix of what stays with you, and ten questions to ask about your RISE project before you sign.